


If I Had a Heart I Could Love You

by mytimehaspassed



Series: Dance On Our Graves Verse [4]
Category: Band of Brothers, The Pacific - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Minor Character Death, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-02
Updated: 2011-10-02
Packaged: 2017-10-24 05:59:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/259830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mytimehaspassed/pseuds/mytimehaspassed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snafu’s father dies on Halloween.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If I Had a Heart I Could Love You

**IF I HAD A HEART I COULD LOVE YOU**  
BAND OF BROTHERS/THE PACIFIC  
Roe/Snafu; Babe/Roe; Sledge/Snafu  
 **WARNINGS** : Modern era AU; spoilers for the series  
 **NOTES** : Dance On Our Graves verse:  
I. [If You Wanna Leave Better Build a Rocket](http://andletmestand.livejournal.com/24803.html)  
II. [We Were Two Until We Melted Down](http://andletmestand.livejournal.com/24574.html)  
III. [We Dance On Our Graves With Our Bodies Below](http://andletmestand.livejournal.com/24041.html)  
IV. this

  
I.

Snafu’s father dies on Halloween. Roe calls him in that strong, steady breath he used to use on his soldiers, and Snafu wants to tell him to shut up because he can’t bear that deep timbre of regret or sorrow or that same heady wall of grief that Snafu had felt when Roe’s own father died sometime in the night when they were young. Snafu wants to tell him that he’s wrong, that if he goes back down to New Orleans from Sledge’s parent’s house that his father will be sitting in front of the TV with his legs up and his hand cold around an open can of beer.

Roe says, “I’m sorry, Merriell,” and Snafu laughs in that slow drawl of his and hangs up.

Roe calls him again (and again and again) but Snafu turns his phone off in the dark of Sledge’s room and curls into the space between the wall and Sledge’s warm body and closes his eyes and doesn’t even see stars.

There’s a breeze coming in from the open window, and Sledge moves softly against him, and the heavy heat from the comforter is grating on Snafu’s nerves because the humidity of Alabama is not like the humidity of Louisiana no matter what Sledge promises with his lips against Snafu’s slick, sweaty skin, and he feels trapped in the tight space and he wants to scream but doesn’t want to make a sound, and he feels his fingers grappling for something, anything to hold on to, feels the sheets twist tighter and tighter around him.

And Sledge doesn’t even wake up when Snafu begins to cry.

***

He goes down for the funeral on a Tuesday and Roe meets him in the parking lot of the parish church in his black suit and tie and hugs him tight enough that Snafu can’t breathe for two long, glorious moments. He looks the same and feels the same and smells the same, but there’s a boy slouching against Roe’s car in a crumpled suit that looks too small for his frame, and he has red hair just like Sledge and he’s watching them but trying not to watch them and Snafu knows that this is Babe.

Roe gestures him over with some kind of look and Babe comes, his hands in his pocket and his face still. “I wanted you to meet Edward,” Roe says careful to Snafu, and Snafu almost says something stupid like they had already met in the desert, but with the way Roe holds himself, Snafu knows that he wants to forget that day.

Babe smiles and says hi and frowns and says sorry all at the same time and Roe winces when Babe’s voice comes out loud in the air between them. Snafu is polite and charming and Roe looks at him as if he’s grown horns on either side of his head and Snafu wants to laugh, but he’s afraid he might choke if he lets himself.

“Where’s,” and here Roe pauses and Snafu knows it’s because he doesn’t want to say Sledge’s name out loud, probably for the same reason that Snafu doesn’t want to say Babe’s.

Snafu shakes his head and changes the subject and Roe lets him and doesn’t point it out and Snafu almost hits him for letting him because the Roe before Snafu’s father died would have never let it go. The Roe after Snafu’s father died lifts one side of his mouth and keeps a strong, healing hand on Snafu’s shoulder and doesn’t say anything when Snafu presses into his warmth and asks him to stay there when he walks into the church, asks him to sit beside him in one of the front pews.

The Roe after Snafu’s father died says sure, and of course, and holds his hand when Snafu sees the coffin and forgets to swallow back the catch in his throat.

***

(Roes only goes with him into the bathroom after the service because he promises to be good, and even then they both know that he’s lying, so when he locks the door and pushes Roe back against it with his hands down the front of Roe’s suit pants and his mouth against Roe’s mouth, neither of them tell each other to stop. Snafu licks and bites and spits and Roe doesn’t even make a sound and Snafu can’t even think of Sledge without feeling guilty so he doesn’t think at all, and he sees Roe press his eyes shut tight enough to hurt and maybe this was the worst idea of the century, maybe fucking up Roe’s relationship shouldn’t make Snafu feel as good as he does, because there’s him and then there’s Roe and then there’s this thing that they have where they’re both terrible for each other and neither of them can see it, and maybe it’s not worth destroying everything in its path.

Snafu doesn’t stop until they’re both bleeding.

When Roe turns to leave, Snafu says, “Thank you.”)

  
II.

He doesn’t make the call until he’s well out of Louisiana, winding through Mississippi with one hand on the steering wheel and the other fumbling with a pack of cigarettes. He smokes through seven before he has enough courage, and thinks it’s a good idea until Sledge says his name without even saying hello first, his voice breathless and worried and angry and alone. Snafu pulls over to the side of the road somewhere where the curves are a little too sharp, somewhere where he can still feel like he’s danger close to something that can kill him, and he tries not to cry, but fails, and then Sledge is asking him if he can just come home, and Snafu thinks of Mobile first without even remembering New Orleans, and there’s that fragile thing inside of him that twists into something painful and he says no before he can catch himself.

It only takes him two hours and a bottle of bourbon to get to Roe’s house.

***

He sleeps in the truck and waits until Babe goes to work the next morning, jimmying open the lock on Roe’s bedroom window, climbing in when Roe goes to take a shower. His boots leave mud prints on the carpet and he smiles like its old times and he sits on Roe’s bed and waits for something to happen, lighting cigarette after cigarette.

“Edward?” Roe calls from the bathroom, and then stops short when he sees Snafu on the bed.

“Merriell, what’s wrong?” he says, and his hand is on the knot of the towel at his side, and he goes to Snafu and he says Snafu’s name again, and Snafu feels that thing inside of him twist and twist and twist.

“Nothing,” Snafu says, and stubs out his cigarette on the wood of the nightstand.

Roe winces, and puts his hand on Snafu’s shoulder, and Snafu tries to pull him down on the bed, but Roe steps back and makes a face like it hurts to move. “No,” he says, and Snafu falls back anyway, his dirty boots on top of the crisp comforter.

“C’mon,” Snafu says, and he opens up his arms.

Smiling and smiling, he says, “It’ll be just like high school again.” Just like all those times that Snafu had lain still as a corpse on his bed until his father passed out in front of the TV, all those times he hitchhiked his way to St. Martinville, making suggestive smiles at every trucker just so he could climb through Roe’s bedroom window and into his bed and let Roe hold him close enough to kiss, just so he could pretend that Roe loved him as much as Snafu loved Roe.

“No,” Roe says, and makes an abortive gesture like he’s looking over his shoulder, like he’s looking for Babe, and Snafu breathes out, long and loud.

Roe says, “What are you doing here?” And he’s keeping his hand steady on the knot of the towel, and he’s looking at Snafu like he’s not sure whether he should call someone or not.

“Fuck you, Gene.” Snafu toes off his boots and pulls his shirt over his head, his fingers making deft work of the buttons on his jeans. “You wanted this yesterday.” He snakes his thumbs under the elastic of his boxers, rubbing back and forth.

“Merriell,” Roe says, and it’s a warning, his voice dark in the lit room. It’s the same warning Snafu used to hear all those nights before, when he got too close, when he went too far.

And Snafu laughs. “Alright,” he says. “Alright. I was just having some fun, Gene.”

Roe looks away, and his hands are shaking. “I can make a guess as to why you’re doing this, but it’s not fair.” He looks back, and Snafu goes still, angry. “It’s not fair to me and it’s not fair to you. Let alone Babe.”

Snafu swallows at the name, sitting up on the bed.

“Let alone Sledge.”

And Roe doesn’t close his eyes when Snafu hits him. He doesn’t even breathe.

***

(Snafu doesn’t stop until Roe presses two fingers to the side of Snafu’s cheek and Snafu feels them stick wetly to his skin and he looks down and realizes that he’s never seen anything this red before, never seen anything this bright, and Roe palms his cheek and tries to say something, but can’t move his swollen lips, and Snafu starts to cry and neither of them do anything except breathe for five, long minutes, and Roe’s lungs rattle and Snafu’s knuckles are on fire, and when Roe finally gets his voice back, he asks Snafu to help him to the bathroom because he doesn’t want Babe to find them like this, with Roe looking like Snafu used to when his father came back from poker games with nothing but a sharp, angry look in his eye, and Snafu cries harder at the thought of his father, or turning out to be like his father, and Roe wraps his arm around Snafu so he won’t fall, but it feels more like a hug than anything else.

Snafu helps Roe butterfly stitch a deep cut above his eye, and Roe helps Snafu clean the blood from underneath his fingernails. Roe’s face is already turning a deep, dark shade of purple, and Snafu can’t look him in the eye.

“It’s okay,” Roe says, but Snafu knows it’s not.

Snafu knows it won’t ever be.)

  
III

Babe throws him out.

Roe takes Babe’s arm and leads him into the kitchen and they have a whispered conversation that Snafu only half listens to, but he only needs to hear Babe call Roe an enabler so many times before he knows that he’s not welcome. He steals a fresh pack of cigarettes from Babe’s jacket and walks out the door and he makes it all the way to the truck before Roe runs out and asks him to stay.

“Please,” he keeps saying, and Snafu wants to throw up.

He says no and the driver’s side door of his truck squeaks with use when he opens it and Roe stands barefoot in his own driveway with two black eyes and a swollen mouth and pleads with Snafu not to leave. Babe haunts the doorway, his arms crossed, his hair glinting in the waning sunlight.

“Fuck, Gene,” he says, and Roe falters, his hands open in front of him. “Why do you still care?”

Roe’s lips don’t move, and Snafu starts the engine, his knuckles bruised on the steering wheel. Roe puts his hands on the door, puts his hands on Snafu’s arm, and says, “Because I love you, you fucking asshole.” Roe’s cold hands on Snafu’s warm arm, he breathes in and breathes out, and Snafu has never wanted to kiss anybody as much as he wants to kiss Roe right now, their faces inches away in the darkened space of the car.

He doesn’t, though.

And Roe smiles.

  
IV

Sledge answers on the first ring and Snafu doesn’t say anything for one, two, three moments until Sledge finally breathes his name out in that way that he sometimes does when they’re in bed and Snafu has just put his mouth on a place that he’s never put it before and Sledge turns into him and they both know how they feel and they feel like there’s something there that’s bigger than them.

Snafu says, “Christ, Eugene,” and he also says, “I’m sorry,” and he also says, “My father’s dead,” but he’s not sure in which order and he’s not sure which was more intelligible because Sledge’s reaction could be to all three, because he says, “Come home, please,” and this time Snafu does, his foot hard on the gas pedal all the way though Louisiana and Mississippi and all the way through the small town of Mobile and all the way up Sledge’s parent’s long driveway.

He sits idling just like the first time, and watches Sledge peek through the dormer window, watches him open the front door and stand there, and this time it’s Snafu who runs out to meet him, sliding his arms around Sledge and holding on until he’s not so sure who exactly is holding him up here, and Sledge brings him inside and up the stairs to his bedroom, and Snafu can smell Sledge’s mother’s cooking from here, but thankfully she’s ignored their heavy footsteps, and thankfully Sledge locks the door behind them.

“I’m sorry,” Snafu says again, and that’s twice more than he’s said to Roe in his entire life, so there must be something to this then, this here with him and with Sledge, this thing where he can’t stop thinking about him and can’t stop feeling like he’s fucked everything up beyond belief, him and Sledge, and Roe and Babe. “I’m sorry,” he says, and that’s three.

“It’s okay, Merriell,” Sledge says. And, “It’s okay.”

Sledge wraps a thin blanket around Snafu’s shoulders, but Snafu presses against him, instead, his mouth hot and tight on Sledge’s mouth, his fingers moving fast on the buttons of Sledge’s shirt. “Eugene,” Snafu breathes, and Sledge doesn’t say anything else, his hands curling themselves into Snafu’s hair.

***

It isn’t right, but Snafu waits three days to tell Sledge about everything.

It’s a Sunday morning, so Snafu waits until he hears Sledge’s parents shuffling around for their church clothes, the opening and shutting of the car door, and the motor that starts up and dies off when they leave. He wakes Sledge up with a kiss on the back of his neck, the slow hand that uncurls from its position on Snafu’s naked hip, the sleep still crusted in the corners of Sledge’s eyes.

Sledge smiles and says good morning, and Snafu lets him kiss him, but moves back when Sledge presses closer. “What?” Sledge says, and looks worried.

Snafu forgets the words he had thought while tracing patterns on Sledge’s back the night before, forgets the words he had practiced when Sledge was still asleep in the early morning hours, when Snafu could hear the quiet footsteps of Sledge’s mother and the first inviting smells of the coffee bubbling over in the pot. Snafu forgets everything he wants to say and says, “I slept with Gene,” instead.

***

Sledge doesn’t understand at first, and then he understands all too well, and Snafu makes himself tell the whole story in this detached, cold manner that betrays the rolling of his stomach and the wet burn of his eyes, makes himself tell everything since what had happened when they were kids, the slow, painful buildup to the night before Roe’s second tour, since what had happened in the desert, when Babe and Sledge were only feet away, since what had happened with his father and the way that he had called and Roe had just come like he always did, like he would always do, because Roe loves Snafu and Snafu loves him back, even if they’re so, so wrong for each other, even if they’re better off apart.

Sledge doesn’t say anything, doesn’t make a sound, his eyes still on Snafu’s face, wet and bright in the light that’s coming in through the blinds.

Snafu closes his eyes, and it’s a cop out, and he knows it, and he talks and talks and talks and when he tells Sledge about hitting Roe until he couldn’t anymore, he almost doesn’t make it to the bathroom before he vomits, his head pressed cold against the porcelain, his hands gripping the bowl tight.

Sledges leans naked in the doorway with his arms crossed and says, “I bet you want me to throw you out.”

And Snafu says yes, his voice muffled, his mouth dry.

And Sledge sighs and says, “Well if Roe can’t, neither can I,” and he goes back out to the bedroom to pull on some clothes, Snafu’s Pendleton shirt stretching tight across Sledge’s chest. He wets a washcloth in the sink and brings it over to Snafu, lifting his head gently to slide it across his forehead.

“You better get used to me, Merriell,” Sledge says.

Snafu makes a choking sound and closes his eyes, and when he opens them again, Sledge is gone.

  
V

Babe answers the phone when Snafu calls, and his words are clipped and hard, and Snafu realizes that he deserves them even if he would never say that he does. “Merriell?” Roe asks, when Babe finally hands it over, and Roe is breathless like he’s just come in from a run, and Snafu imagines him standing in the bedroom sweating through his clothes, imagines Babe dropping a kiss on to the back of Roe’s wet neck, and he passes a hand over his face and waits a beat until Roe says his name again.

“Hey, cher,” he says, and it’s hollow.

Roe asks him how he is, and he says it in French, and Snafu knows it’s because Babe is right there, eavesdropping, and Snafu didn’t want it to be like this, didn’t want it to be like this at all, but he made it like this, and this is how it’s going to stay.

“I’m fine, Gene,” he says, in English, and he hears a door shut on the other end and imagines Roe moving into the darkened bathroom, imagines Babe on the other side, scowling.

“Are you sure? Are you at Sledge’s, or,” and here he pauses, like he doesn’t want to say it, like he doesn’t want it to be true, even after all the shit Snafu’s done to him.

“I’m still here,” Snafu says, and lets Roe breathe out in relief, lets him think that it’s still his job to worry. “I told him everything. He,” Snafu scratches at the scabbed web of his knuckles, doesn’t even wince in pain. “He hasn’t forgiven me yet, but he says he will. One day.”

“Good,” Roe says, and it’s the first time in a long time that Snafu’s heard him smile.

“Yeah,” Snafu says, and wraps his fingers around his cell phone tight, wraps them until they shake. “Are we okay?”

Snafu hears Babe in the background yelling something out, hears Roe shuffle closer to the phone. There’s this long pause where Snafu thinks that he should just take it back, take back everything he’s said from the time they were kids until now, take back every time he’s tried to touch Roe and Roe didn’t want him to, every time he’s asked for something he really shouldn’t have had, every time Roe gave him what he wanted and didn’t ask for anything in return.

There’s this long pause and Snafu thinks that he’s fucked it all up, fucked this whole thing up, and nobody will ever blame Roe if Snafu never returns to Louisiana. Nobody will ever blame Sledge if he leaves him with his half-truths and his scars and tells him that Alabama never wanted him, that Sledge had made a big mistake by inviting him here.

Snafu thinks that maybe if he’s hurt this many people this badly, maybe he really is his father’s son.

And Roe says, “Yeah,” and it’s all in one long breath.

Roe says, “Yeah, we’re okay.” 


End file.
